What are ser­vice man­agers doing to effec­tive­ly ser­vice hybrid and elec­tric vehi­cles and to get cus­tomers to come back? DOE’s Alter­na­tive Fuels Data Cen­ter and the SAE make a few points…

1. Hybrids and plug-in hybrid elec­tric vehi­cles need rou­tine ICE main­te­nance, and the elec­tri­cal sys­tem (bat­tery, motor, and asso­ci­at­ed elec­tron­ics) will like­ly require min­i­mal sched­uled main­te­nance.
2. With the grow­ing instal­la­tion of regen­er­a­tive brak­ing sys­tems into hybrids and plug-in hybrids, their brak­ing sys­tems gen­er­al­ly last longer than con­ven­tion­al vehi­cle brak­ing.
3. Deal­ers need to answer ques­tions about bat­tery life and war­ran­ty cov­er­age (such as 10 years, 100,000 miles), and infor­ma­tion on the manufacturer’s bat­tery recy­cling pol­i­cy.
4. All-elec­tric vehi­cles typ­i­cal­ly require less main­te­nance than con­ven­tion­al vehi­cles since the bat­tery, motor, and asso­ci­at­ed elec­tron­ics require lit­tle to no reg­u­lar main­te­nance.
5. Despite the sophis­ti­cat­ed nature of hybrid sys­tems, tech­ni­cians should be qual­i­fied for rou­tine hybrid and EV ser­vice. Scan tools are a fact of life in today’s ser­vice bay, help­ing tech­ni­cians “see” into the world of invis­i­ble elec­tron­ics and diag­nose prob­lems. Safe­ty poli­cies are also a top pri­or­i­ty for ser­vice tech­ni­cians han­dling EVs and hybrids, just as they are for emer­gency “first respon­ders.”